In the Mood for Podcast: Episode 35

EPISODE 35: The High and the Mighty
[1:23:39]
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It's Episode 35 of In the Mood for Podcast, a British-based film podcast hosted by Calum Reed of Ultimate Addict and Pete Sheppard of In the Mood for Blog. With the awards bait officially out of the way we're turning our attentions towards top ten lists this week, but will any of our picks match? We attempt to find gems among the wreckage of "Flight" and the frottage of "Hyde Park on Hudson," while Pete endures the pop-happy politics of "Starbuck." We're previewing the upcoming Berlin Film Festival, the lineup of which includes Richard Linklater's highly-anticipated "Before Midnight" and Wong Kar-wai's flashy-looking "The Grandmasters." We also take some time to consider the difficulties of list-making, and crow about our brand-spanking new site.

Discussed on the podcast:
Opening Segment: Announcement about our new website and a preview of the upcoming Berlin Film Festival
[4:25 - 14:35]

*Preconception Corner*

Reviews of:

• "Flight"
• "Hyde Park on Hudson"
• "Starbuck"

[18:50 - 50:25]

Closing Segment: Our top ten films of 2012, and our personal year-end acting lists!
[50:30 - 1:16:55]

*Shag, Marry or Kill?*
*The Watson Factor*
*The Poupaud Range*

Outro Music: Roy Orbison, "Blue Bayou"

Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)

Hyde Park on Hudson

Directed by Roger Michell

Starring: Laura Linney, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, Olivia Colman, Samuel West, Elizabeth Wilson

Grade: D+ [28]

Loitering somewhere between “The Bridges of Madison County” and “An Education,” yet nowhere near as good as either, Hyde Park is the essence of poor middlebrow filmmaking. Two decades too late, it’s the self-important, voice-over-infested project you’re more likely to see Joan Plowright or Ellen Burstyn starring in these days than poor Laura Linney, and, to my memory, it’s the least Linney has ever impressed. It isn’t an indictment of her so much, given that, of the cast, only Olivia Williams attempts to elevate her first lady-character above besieged-by-the-time twaddle. But that might be because she’s playing the only person who isn’t swept away by the alluded charms of Bill Murray’s President Roosevelt, who’s written to captivate but has precious little on the page to enliven. We’re once again supposed to be amused by King George VI’s awkward demeanour, and the cheap standoff between Anglo-American relations as a brittle opposition of polite decorum and brash self-sufficiency. This isn’t a portrait of history so much as a comment-section cartoon, with cutting satire replaced by pandering bourgeois humour. Those will laugh, those won't; None of us will remember this film in six months’ time, so what does it matter?